


no space between us

by nightswatch



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Fourth of July, Getting Together, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nursey Goes To Maine, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-18
Updated: 2017-07-18
Packaged: 2018-12-03 19:22:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11538819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightswatch/pseuds/nightswatch
Summary: During the summer after junior year, Nursey misses Dex a lot more than he thought he would. And maybe Dex misses him a little, too.





	no space between us

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt I got on tumblr. 
> 
> Special thanks to [omg-zimbits-trash](http://omg-zimbits-trash.tumblr.com/), who was my beta for this fic.

There are a great many things going on in the lives of Nursey’s friends and family that could be on his mind right now.

There’s a lot going on in Bitty’s life, and in Chowder’s, and his sister’s. He could be thinking about them. He could be thinking about what the Haus will be like without Bitty, and he could be thinking about what Chowder is up to at the Schooners’ development camp. He could check the Schooners Twitter to see if he’ll stumble across a picture of Chowder. He could be thinking about his sister’s Very Important Job Interview next week that demands all of her attention. (Leaving none for Nursey.)

Nursey has been looking at Master’s courses. Briefly. He had dinner with both of his moms. Separately. He bought a stack of second-hand books and tried to make his way through it. He bought a new notebook. He filled the first few pages with half-sentences about things that don’t remind him of William Poindexter.

But _everything_ reminds him of William Poindexter.

He shared a room with Dex for a year and in that year the things that remind him of Dex have doubled. If not tripled. When they said goodbye before Nursey went back to New York and Dex went back to Portland, it felt weird and Nursey couldn’t put a finger on that feeling; it kept slipping away from him.

He thought he’d be relieved to get away from the constant nagging and chirping and riling each other up.

He’s not relieved. He misses Poindexter. Because last year was more than just the constant nagging and chirping and riling each other up. It was also sitting on Dex’s bed together and sharing the last slice of pie and Dex complaining about crumbs in his bed all night, and talking until three in the morning about nothing in particular and everything that mattered, and Dex draping a blanket over him when he fell asleep reading.

Granted, they shared that pie after Dex ate the two cookies Bitty had left in the kitchen for _both of them_ and Nursey locked Dex out of their room. The pie was a bribe to let Dex back in, but still.

Nursey has made it through several William-Poindexter-less weeks, but he’s not sure if he can actually make it through a few more.

He misses Dex and it’s _killing_ him.

Dex hasn’t been in touch, not really. A few texts in the group chat here and there, but it’s not like he’s sending Nursey any pictures on Snapchat like Chowder does all the time. He knows that Dex is busy working, but he has to have a day or two off here and there, right?

When he has dinner with his mom that night, he says, “I think I need to go to Portland.”

“Oregon?” his mom asks.

“Maine.”

“Ah,” she says, like it makes perfect sense.

*

Nursey doesn’t jump right on a plane to Portland, because he has no fucking clue where Dex actually lives. There’s most likely more than one house in Portland, and Dex would probably straight-up murder him if showed up on his doorstep unannounced, so Nursey tests the waters first.

 

**To: Willy J. P.**

how are you

 

**From: Willy J. P.**

sunburnt

 

That’s it. That’s all Dex has to say to him. One word. Nursey thought that at the end of the year they’d reached some sort of truce, that they’d live in peace during senior year. Sure, they never stopped bickering, they still pulled pranks, but they were, tentatively, _friends_.

And a friend deserves more than a one-word answer. It’s very Poindexter-y, but still, Nursey deserves more than this. He deserves… at least three words. If not four.

Then, almost as if he’s reading Nursey’s mind from a billion miles away, Dex sends him another text.

 

**From: Willy J. P.**

you?

 

Instead of typing out another text, Nursey hits _call_. It’ll be quicker this way. And maybe he misses Dex’s voice along with the rest of him? No, he doesn’t, really, that’d be ridiculous, but they are friends and it’s normal to miss your friend, right?

He misses Chowder. And he misses hanging out with him, lounging on Dex’s bed with him, Dex sitting at his desk, trying to finish up his homework, muttering angrily at them.

Yeah. That’s what he misses. Hanging out. Not Dex’s voice.

_Honestly, what the fuck, Nurse?_

He has no idea where that thought even came from.

It actually takes Nursey by surprise when Dex answers his call. “What now?” Dex asks, like Nursey has been bugging him all summer long.

“You asked how I was doing,” Nursey says, and tries to sound cheerful and not like he’s realizing that he just made the worst mistake of his life. Why did he think for even just a second that Dex would want to hang out with him? Whatever, he’ll ask anyway.

Dex clears his throat. “So?”

“Huh?”

“How are you doing?” Dex asks, impatient.

“Oh, uh, fine,” Nursey says, catching himself quickly. “How are you?”

“You already asked me that,” Dex says, but now there’s an amused undertone to his voice that Nursey is familiar with now that he’s shared a room with Dex. It’s a quiet kind of amusement and Nursey can almost see him now, trying not to smile, and Nursey… missed that.

Anyway.

“Right,” Nursey says. “How’s your summer been so far?”

“Pretty good.”

“Yeah, same.”

Dex hums and silence falls for a moment and suddenly Nursey wants to say a billion things to him just to keep Dex from hanging up.

What he ends up saying, though, is, “I’m bored.”

“I figured,” Dex says.

“Why?”

“Why else would you call me?”

“To ask you how you’re doing,” Nursey says lightly. “And, you know, I was thinking… we could hang out.”

Dex doesn’t reply and Nursey can’t tell if that’s an unspoken _no, we can’t hang out_ or if Dex is speechless because Nursey dared to suggest that they could spend time together before they’re forced back into the same room at the Haus.

“Like, the Fourth is coming up, right?” Nursey barrels on. “I could come there or…” He doesn’t want to be impolite, but he also knows that Dex probably can’t easily afford a trip to New York. “Or you could come here,” he adds anyway. “But if you don’t have time, it’s chill. No worries.”

After a moment that threatens to stretch out into eternity, Dex asks, “You want to come here?”

“Yeah… I guess.”

“You’re bored and you want to come here for the Fourth of July.”

Nursey shrugs, even though Dex can’t see him. “It was just an idea,” he says. His sister will be visiting friends in Florida and his moms… well, they’ll both be home on the Fourth, but Nursey isn’t gonna bug them on their only day off when they’ve barely seen each other in the last two weeks.

“You can’t come before Friday evening,” Dex says.

“Wait… what?”

“On the Friday before the Fourth I’m working at my uncle’s store, so I can’t pick you up anywhere before Friday evening.”

“You want me to stay for the whole weekend?”

“What, were you gonna come up here just for a single day?” There’s that quietly amused tone again.

Nursey doesn’t reply, because he hadn’t really thought about it until Dex brought it up, and now this feels like a bad idea again, because what is he gonna do in Maine? With Dex? For several days?

There won’t be a way for him to escape. He’ll actually have to be around Dex day and night, there won’t be any trips to the library to get away from each other, no fleeing to Chowder’s room, no hiding in the kitchen, waiting for a pie to come out of the oven.

He really, _really_ didn’t think this through.

“I’ll talk to my parents, yeah?” Dex says.

Well, it’s too late now. “Okay,” Nursey says. And he smiles. Because he’s gonna go see Dex.

No one can ever know about that.

*

Dex didn’t put up enough of a fight and that should have made Nursey suspicious, but he’s too excited about going to Maine – in retrospect that should have tipped him off – to think too much about it.

He throws some clothes into his duffle bag and off he goes. Well. Something like that.

Nursey also spends the night before he leaves thinking a little more about why the hell he thought this was a good idea, worrying about Dex’s parents, and Dex’s brothers, and Dex’s uncles and cousins, talking himself into thinking that they’ll all hate him. Dex told him to not even think about bringing any gifts, so Nursey doesn’t think about it, not until it’s two in the morning and almost too late to get anything.

_It’s chill_ , he tells himself. Dex knows what he’s talking about. And his family is probably all right.

Anyway, Nursey has met Dex’s mom. She’s cool. When she heard that Nursey’s moms – _parents_ , he said to her – hadn’t been able to make it last family weekend, she invited Nursey to come have dinner with her and Dex. That evening Nursey learned more about Dex than in the two-and-a-bit years they’d been on the same team. And now, months and months later, Nursey knows so much more.

He reads Dex differently now than he used to. He knows what Dex’s face looks like when he can’t deal with anything anymore, when it’s time for Nursey to back off. He knows what Dex looks like two seconds after he was woken up by Nursey tripping over his shoes. He knows what Dex looks like when he’s cried, even though that’s one of the things Nursey would rather not know.

Nursey’s stepmom is home when he leaves for the airport and she hugs him and tells him to have fun.

The flight isn’t a long one, but Nursey still manages to pack as much worrying into it as he possibly can. It’s sort-of-but-not-really late when he arrives, almost nine, and the runway is wet when his plane touches down, twenty minutes later than scheduled, and he can already imagine how hard Dex will be glaring, probably even before he lays eyes on Nursey.

It takes Nursey about a second to find him. There’s the hair, for one, and Dex is wearing a Samwell shirt and… he’s not glaring. Actually, when he sees Nursey, he smiles.

“Hey,” Nursey says and stops short right in front of Dex, because the smile on Dex’s face throws him off like nothing ever has before when it comes to Dex, except maybe for that one time when Nursey was sick last December and Dex brought him soup and an extra blanket.

He’s exaggerating. They’re nice to each other sometimes. They don’t fight that much, not anymore, not as much as they did right after they’d moved into the same room.

They grew into being around each other. Which is why Nursey missed him. He got so used to having Dex around, got so used to talking to him about all kinds of irrelevant stuff. _How was your day_ kind of stuff. _How’d your test go_ kind of stuff. Stuff you talk about with your friends. He misses talking about that.

He misses Dex’s slightly exasperated, “Just go to sleep, Nurse,” whenever he wouldn’t stop talking.

He misses the clutter of their room, and the tape they used to divide everything up, and then to tape each other’s closets shut and then Dex – unsuccessfully – used it to tape Nursey to the ladder of their bunkbed, and then Nursey – also unsuccessfully – used to tape Dex’s mouth shut so he’d stop grumbling about some group work assignment.

He misses sitting on the green couch with Dex, Bitty looking on in horror, and watching movies and eating brownies and trying to stick popcorn into Dex’s nose.

He misses coming home and actually _feeling_ like he just came home.

He feels like that now. And he wants to hug Dex, but he’s not sure if he should, if he’s allowed to, but then Dex says, “Finally,” and it’s obviously about Nursey’s delayed plane, but for Nursey it’s not just about the plane. It’s about half a summer. So he hugs Dex and Dex, after an exasperated huff, hugs him back.

“Thanks,” Nursey says once he’s pulled away. “You know, for… picking me up and stuff.”

“Sure,” Dex says.

_Sure_.

Somehow Nursey can’t wrap his mind around the fact that Dex might actually be happy to see him.

“Come on,” Dex says, “move your ass, I wanna go home.”

Well, Dex is clearly still Dex.

*

They’re back in _how was your day_ territory about two seconds after they’re in the car – “It’s my mom’s,” Dex says when Nursey nearly sits down on a Carrie Underwood CD.

Nursey chirps Dex about it anyway and Dex rolls his eyes and that’s exactly what he missed. Dex points at streets and buildings they pass – “My uncle works over there,” and, “I went to school down there,” and, “The rink where I learned to skate is, like, down that street.”

As it turns out, Dex doesn’t live _in_ Portland. Just close to Portland. Honestly, Nursey just came here without even knowing Dex’s address and now Dex is giving him some sort of small town sightseeing tour.

Nursey isn’t sure why it feels so strange to him that Dex is sharing all of this with him so willingly. There was a time when they knew nothing about each other. Or, Nursey should say, they knew only what they could see. It took Nursey some time to realize that Dex is more underneath. A lot more.

In return, Nursey talks about his sister and his moms, which is when Dex shoots him a look and Nursey sighs, because he knows that look. It’s that look Dex sometimes gets when he talks about his family and about how they didn’t understand why he wanted to go to Samwell, of all places. It’s the same look he got when Nursey caught Dex flirting with some guy in the kitchen during a kegster – or some guy flirting with Dex. Nursey was too drunk to really pay attention, he just remembers being cross with Dex because he wasn’t paying attention to _him_.

It’s that look he gets when he’s afraid that his family might find out something he never ever wants them to know. This has nothing to do with Nursey.

He didn’t understand it at first, why Dex acted the way he did, why he always distanced himself, pretended he wasn’t interested in guys. After that kegster, after they talked, up in their room, after Dex whispered, “My family can’t know,” into the crook of Nursey’s neck, he did understand.

“I won’t mention them,” Nursey promises.

“It’s just…”

“Yeah, I get it,” Nursey says. He gets it, because the kids at Andover weren’t as accepting as most of the people he’s met at Samwell. Not of him and not of his moms.

Dex only nods and they drive on in silence. It’s not a bad kind of silence, though. It’s the kind of silence where you don’t need to say any words to understand each other, so Nursey doesn’t even try to break it. It’s the best kind of silence.

He didn’t think he and Dex would ever get here. To this kind of understanding.

Nursey can tell they’re getting closer as they drive down streets lined with houses. When Dex pulls into a driveway almost at the end of the street, Nursey says, “This is it, huh?”

“This is it,” Dex says.

The Poindexters’ house is painted blue, and there’s a stone with a crab drawn on it next to the door, and a lantern and wind chimes. There’s a bike in the yard that likely belongs to one of Dex’s cousins, and a wooden bench on the front porch that has something self-made about it and when they walk in through the door, it smells like the Haus.

“Did you make pie?” Nursey asks, only half-jokingly.

Before Dex can answer, a little girl, somehow even more ginger than Dex, comes darting down the hall. Dex picks her up and she says, “Is this your friend?”

Dex shoots Nursey a look, like he knows that Nursey wants to make a joke about them being mortal enemies. “She got to stay up late so she could meet you,” Dex says and the kid beams.

“Hi,” Nursey says, “I’m Derek.”

“I’m Izzie,” the kid says and shakes his hand.

It doesn’t end with Izzie. There’s two more kids, Jamie and Audrey, and their parents – Dex’s uncle and his wife – and Dex’s parents and there’s just way too many names. He already knows that he’ll need Dex to repeat them all for him, because from this point onwards there’ll only be more names and Nursey is totally out of his depth.

“Where’s Jamie?” Dex asks.

“There’s more than one Jamie?” Nursey whispers.

“My brother…” Dex mumbles and doesn’t look exactly delighted, but Nursey isn’t sure if anyone else notices.

“He’s still out with his friends,” Dex’s mom – Abby – says.

“Ah,” Dex only says and that’s that.

Nursey is offered a sandwich, cookies, a variety of drinks, to all of which he says _no, thanks, I’m good_ , and then Dex eventually takes the chance to arrange their escape and takes him up the stairs.

Dex has already told Nursey that he would have to sleep in his room with him because his uncle and his family are visiting as well, to which Nursey replied that he’ll even sleep _under_ Dex’s bed like he does at Samwell.

“Now I know what people mean when they talk about monsters under their beds,” Dex said.

There’s an air mattress on the floor next to Dex’s bed. It’s twin-sized and crammed into a corner right next to his desk. Dex’s room is small and there’s books and comics and hockey trophies on his shelf and a stuffed bear is squeezed into a gap, telling Nursey that it most likely usually dwells somewhere else.

“Yeah, so…” Dex says. “Bathroom is right across the hall. Like, literally right across, there’ll be people stomping about all the time, but I guess you don’t care because you always sleep through five alarms.”

“I slept through five alarms _once_ ,” Nursey says and drops his duffel on the air mattress.

“Yeah. And guess who didn’t have to get up yet and was wide awake anyway.”

“Well, I guess I don’t have to set any alarms for tomorrow, so we can sleep in and you can get grumpy about something else.”

Dex elbows him in the ribs.

“What?” Nursey says.

“Just stop talking,” Dex says.

“I just got here and you’re already telling me to shut up?”

“Yeah, and I can’t wait for four more days of you shutting up,” Dex says, grabs a pillow and hits Nursey in the chest with it. “Do you need anything?”

“Nah…”

“I’m just asking, because you said no to all the food my mom offered you, but I know you and I know you’re constantly hungry and willing to eat literally anything.”

“Not _literally_ anything.”

“Yeah, okay but I once caught you eating Nutella with a spoon when Bitty wasn’t there and we didn’t have any bread, so…”

“Listen, Nutella is, like, the best thing there is.” Nursey shakes his head at Dex. He is a little hungry. He just didn’t want to bother Dex’s mom. “I mean, if you have any leftovers or anything…”

“I’ll be right back.”

Nursey sits down on Dex’s bed, because that’s what he always does at Samwell, even though he always trips either on his way up or on his way down the ladder.

Dex returns with two sandwiches and a bunch of cookies all piled onto the same plate, so he could also carry two bottles of water. They eat and then they bicker about the Falcs’ new signings and Nursey still feels so much like he just came home that he can’t even put it into words.

Later, when they’ve gone to bed, and the house has gotten quiet, Nursey grins into his pillow. He stole it from Dex’s bed earlier and it nearly ended with a pillow fight, but then Nursey’s foot got caught in the strap of his duffle and he – luckily – tumbled right into Dex’s bed.

Dex let him have the pillow.

“Hey, Dex?” Nursey says into the darkness a few minutes after Dex has switched off the lights.

“What?”

“Are you asleep?”

“Oh my _god_.”

Nursey laughs. And, much to his surprise, Dex laughs with him.

*

When Nursey wakes up on Saturday morning, Dex is still asleep, his arm hanging off the bed. And because Nursey’s eyes are only a few inches away from his arm, he can’t help but look at Dex’s freckles. If he looks up, just a little, he could look at the freckles on Dex’s nose, on his cheeks, but if Dex caught him, no one would ever find Nursey’s body.

So he stares at the freckles on Dex’s arm and tries to find a pattern. Sometimes he wants to take a pen and play connect-the-dots.

No one would ever find Nursey’s body.

Dex sighs quietly when he wakes up, screws his eyes shut like he doesn’t want to be awake yet and then finally blinks at Nursey, who tries to look like he just woke up as well.

“What time’s it?” Dex asks.

Nursey checks his phone. “Half past nine.”

Dex huffs.

Nursey isn’t sure when Dex usually gets up during the summer, but the right answer is probably something like _really fucking early_. Dex told him that he could take a few days off when Nursey, very carefully, asked him if he didn’t have to work at his uncle’s store and if it was really okay if Nursey stayed for longer than just a day or two.

Nursey has no idea what they’re going to do. Usually, when neither of them is working on his homework or studying, they go to Jerry’s, or to the movies or to the Murder Stop & Shop. Usually, Chowder is there. Usually, there’s some way to escape.

But now Nursey is in Maine and there’s no Chowder and no escaping if things go awry.

“So…” Nursey says.

“Wanna have breakfast?”

Nursey grins.

As it turns out, the house is empty and there’s a note from Dex’s mom, saying they’re at Grandma Annie’s house with the kids. “They’re down the street,” Dex explains. “We can swing by later… or we can go to the beach or something.”

“Cool,” Nursey says.

Dex looks at him for a moment, looks like he wants to say something, but then he just opens the fridge and peers inside. “Pancakes?”

“Poindexter,” Nursey says.

Dex raises his eyebrows at him, already slightly exasperated and the day has barely even started.

“You’d really make me pancakes?” Nursey asks, and bats his eyelashes at him.

“For fuck’s sake,” Dex mutters and pulls a bowl out of a cupboard. Nursey watches as Dex makes him breakfast, which is slightly surreal and also excellent chirping material that Nursey is going to save for later.

In all honesty, though, Nursey is so, so glad that Bitty taught Dex how to make pancakes. Because those are Bitty’s pancakes. Nursey can’t tell the difference and he tells Dex as much and Dex’s face instantly goes lobster-red.

Nursey smirks and Dex kicks him under the table. Business as usual.

It still feels strange to Nursey that he’s allowed to be here. Before they leave for Dex’s grandma’s house, as he waits for Dex to pull on his shoes, he stares at a family photo by the staircase. Dex’s parents, and two boys, one of them presumably Dex’s older brother Jamie, and Dex, tiny and ginger and beaming at the camera.

Nursey can feel Dex’s eyes on him, yet Dex remains silent. It’s like he’s waiting for Nursey to chirp him.

And Nursey, of course, doesn’t disappoint him. “You were so much cuter back then. Less grumpy. Although sometimes you do still have peaceful moments…” Nursey thinks of this morning, of Dex fast asleep, face half-hidden in his pillow. Drooling a little. “Like, when you’re asleep.”

“Well, you’re less annoying when you’re asleep, too.”

“So you admit you’re annoying when you’re awake?”

“No, _you_ are annoying.”

Nursey gives him a pinch and grins. “No, _you_.”

They’ve had this argument before, only they weren’t smiling at each other but shoving each other around in the kitchen until Bitty kicked them both out.

Dex rolls his eyes, but there’s still a hint of that smile lingering on his face. “Come on, let’s go.”

Nursey casts another glance at the photo before he follows Dex to the door. He still can’t believe that he’s allowed to be here. But, sure, they’ve known each other for three years, and, sharing a room, they’ve also shared stuff they might have not told each other before.

He remembers talking about his dad, a little drunk after a kegster, remembers saying, “He’s not a bad dad, y’know? He’s just busy. And my moms are busy. They’re all…” _Busy_. Nursey’s mom and dad are still friends. He always made sure Nursey had everything he needed. Always sent a gift for his birthday.

But he never actually showed up.

That night, Dex didn’t even throw anything at him for ending his ramblings with, “Hashtag yikes.”

He also remembers sitting in the reading room with Dex, just Dex, because Chowder was out with Farmer, and Bitty was in Providence, and who the fuck knows what Ollie and Wicks were up to. It was a week after Spring C and Dex seemed restless and Nursey could tell that he was working up to something and for once in his life Nursey convinced himself not to badger Dex.

And it paid off because eventually, Dex said, “I almost kissed a guy at Spring C.”

“Oh?” Nursey said. His mind got caught on the _almost_ for a moment. _Almost_ meant that Dex didn’t kiss that guy and Nursey wasn’t really sure why he thought it was a good thing. Well, Dex deserved better than some random drunk dude at Spring C.

Nursey thought there might be more to the story, but that was all Dex told him.

“Why didn’t you?” Nursey asked.

Dex only shrugged, but he didn’t look angry, didn’t snap at Nursey for asking questions. He just stared down at the street and sighed quietly. Dex gets quiet sometimes. And sometimes Nursey thinks that maybe there’s too much noise in the world for Dex and that he sometimes just doesn’t know how to deal with it. Nursey tries to remember that, but sometimes he still forgets.

“So,” Nursey asked, his voice low, “you like guys, huh?”

“Yeah,” Dex said. And, after a few seconds, “Just guys.” Before Nursey could even react, Dex quickly added, “My family doesn’t know.”

The implication was more than clear. Dex’s family didn’t know and he wasn’t planning on telling them either. Dex’s mom, when Nursey met her, seemed like a perfectly nice person, but that doesn’t say much. A lot of people are nice until they suddenly aren’t.

“I won’t tell anyone,” Nursey promised.

“I know,” Dex said and after that he went inside and they haven’t talked about it ever since, but that was the first time Dex really let him in. And maybe Dex only told him because he didn’t want to spend another year hiding, but Nursey hasn’t forgotten about that soft _I know_. Dex trusted him. Trusts him.

And yet, Nursey was under the impression that Dex was looking forward to several Nurse-less weeks.

“Why’d you say yes?” Nursey asks, casually, as they leave.

“Huh?”

“When I asked if I could come here. Why’d you say yes?”

Dex frowns at him. His eyes look even brighter in the sunlight. “Did you think I’d say no?”

Nursey only raises his eyebrows at him.

Dex stares back at him for a moment, then he shrugs. “Well, I didn’t.”

He didn’t, and maybe there’s no particular reason for it, but that doesn’t keep Nursey from thinking about it.

He’s sort of distracted when there’s yet another uncle plus two kids in tow at Dex’s grandma’s house, and Dex’s grandma, obviously, and Dex’s grandma’s neighbors. One of Dex’s tiniest cousins sticks flowers into Nursey’s hair and he catches Dex smiling at them before he ducks back into the house to get more plates for the neighbors.

Later on, Dex takes him – and a parasol – to the beach. Dex won’t let him take his phone anywhere near the water, so Nursey snaps a bunch of pictures of Dex sitting next to him on a beach towel. When Dex falls asleep Nursey resists the urge to dig a pen out of his bag and draw on him, but he does snap a close-up of Dex’s face that he sends to Chowder.

There are a lot of freckles on Dex’s back. A lot of them. And Dex would definitely chop of his hand if he touched him, but Nursey still finds himself wanting to reach out. He doesn’t, though, because he doesn’t have a death wish, and grabs the book he brought instead.

He reads about two sentences, then he puts the book back down and watches the waves roll in and breathes in the ocean air and lets his thoughts wander.

It’s something he tried not to do when he was in New York, because he didn’t like the directions his thoughts wanted to wander in. Sometimes he’s really not good at being alone. It’s what he likes about living at the Haus. There’s always someone around when he can’t stand being alone.

He likes staring at the waves, because it feels like whatever thought he’s having gets pulled away from him as the waves retreat. He doesn’t dwell on anything.

The next time he looks down at Dex, Dex is looking back up at him. Neither of them says a word; they just look at each other for a moment, and it’s not like one of the staring contests they sometimes get into, it’s… something different. Nursey tries to figure it out, but then Dex sits up and the moment’s gone.

They get burgers on the way home; Nursey pays because he owes Dex gas money for picking him up anyway and Dex doesn’t look happy about it, but he doesn’t start a fight about it either.

Back at the Poindexters’ house, Nursey finally meets Dex’s brother, who’s sitting on the front porch, talking on the phone, although he quickly puts it down to shake Nursey’s hand and say hello.

Dex only nods at him and then shoves Nursey into the house.

Nursey almost wants to ask if Dex got into a fight with his brother before he got here on Friday.

Almost.

By now he knows when to keep his mouth shut, though.

*

It doesn’t take Nursey long to figure out what the problem is. Maybe there’s even more to it, but it’s at least starting to piece itself together in Nursey’s mind on Sunday evening.

Jamie is nice enough to Nursey during dinner, asks him about New York, asks him how he got into playing hockey and the conversation doesn’t really move on from there when Dex’s dad tells them stories about the team he used to play on.

After dinner, Dex’s relatives sit out on the porch, the kids playing in the backyard, and Nursey sits in the kitchen, watching Dex roll out pie dough. He tries to help and ends up with a band-aid on his finger. Afterwards he isn’t allowed anywhere near any sharp objects anymore. Dex grumbles about blood in the filling. There is absolutely no blood anywhere close to Dex’s apples, but Dex just loves to grumble.

“Dude, it’s like you’re Bitty,” Nursey says when Dex takes care of the lattice. It looks just like it’s supposed to look, which isn’t something Nursey could ever hope to accomplish in a million years.

Jamie comes into the kitchen right when Dex is about to put the pie into the oven. “I thought mom was kidding when she said you were baking,” Jamie says. “But I guess that’s your thing now. No wonder with that weird-ass school you’re going to.”

Dex pointedly looks away, but Nursey can’t help but raise his eyebrows at Jamie.

“Hey, no offense,” Jamie says and pats Nursey on the back. “I know Will’s got that scholarship and all, but I know what kinda reputation that college has, ya know, I’ve been telling him not to let it rub off on him if you know what I mean.” He laughs, grabs a beer from the fridge and leaves again.

Dex slams the oven door shut.

“Dex…”

Dex looks like he’s about to hurl a bowl against the wall. He sucks in a deep breath and grabs his phone to set the timer. “Let’s go upstairs until the pie is done.”

Nursey follows Dex to his room, trying to think of something to say that won’t sound completely ridiculous or that’ll make Dex even more angry.

The door clicks shut and Dex leans against it, his eyes on the ceiling. “He always says stuff like that,” he whispers. “He just won’t stop and he thinks it’s real fucking hilarious.”

“Dex–”

“Stop it.”

“I didn’t–”

“You’re looking at me like that and I– Just stop.”

“Sorry,” Nursey mumbles. He looks at Dex and his clenched fists and his red cheeks and Nursey has seen him like this before; he usually looks like this two seconds before he snaps at Nursey, but this is different. This isn’t them riling each other up, this is more than Nursey can understand, because he only caught a glimpse of what Dex has to deal with whenever he’s home. He can’t do much. He can’t change anything about this. “Dex…”

“What, Nurse?”

“D’you want a hug?” That could be a really bad idea, of course, because they’re not usually the sort of friends who hug it out. They hug on the ice, yeah, and Nursey has found himself clinging to Dex during a kegster many, many times, but that’s not the same thing.

That one time, at the beginning of last year’s fall semester, when Nursey got home early because one of his classes had gotten cancelled and he found Dex sitting on his bed with red-rimmed eyes, Dex told him to get out and Nursey did, even though he spent the entire day wondering if he should have stayed. He found Dex in the kitchen with Bitty later on and Dex looked fine, but it gnawed on Nursey for a while that he didn’t even ask Dex if he was okay.

So this time he’s not walking away.

Dex doesn’t reply, he just takes a step closer and Nursey pulls him into a hug. He feels like he’s stranded in a different universe. Dex smells like apples and cinnamon and his fingers are clenched in Nursey’s shirt and Nursey still doesn’t know what to say, so he just holds Dex tightly like that’ll magically make things right again.

A few minutes go by until Dex pulls away. Quietly, he says, “Sorry.”

Nursey wants to tell him that it’s fine, but it’s not. Instead, he hugs him again.

“Nursey,” Dex says gruffly. “I’m okay.”

Nursey lets go of him.

For a moment, there’s no sound except for the hum of voices in the backyard. Eventually, Dex nods at his laptop. “You wanna watch a movie?”

“Yeah, sure,” Nursey says.

“Pick something,” Dex says. “I’ll get snacks.”

Nursey makes himself comfortable on Dex’s bed and pulls up the Haus’ shared Netflix account.

When Dex returns he obviously has to roll his eyes at the movie Nursey has picked – _Legally Blonde_ – but at least he doesn’t complain and hands Nursey a bowl of popcorn. Dex shoves his laptop around on his desk a bit, probably looking for the best angle for both of them.

“I mean, I could have picked _Dead Poets Society_ ,” Nursey says and hits play.

Dex sighs and flops down next to him. “If you try to shove popcorn up my nose again, I’m taking you straight to the airport.”

“Duly noted,” Nursey says.

He pauses the movie when Dex goes downstairs to take the pie out of the oven and it takes him a while to come back upstairs, so Nursey texts Chowder, who’s currently having a bit of a meltdown about the Sharks’ free agent situation. 

When Dex comes back, he looks a tiny bit more murderous than he did when he left, but he doesn’t tell Nursey what happened, just restarts the movie and sits back down, knees drawn up to his chest.

Nursey glances at Dex.

Dex keeps his eyes fixed on his laptop screen and says, “It’s good to have someone here who… who’s from Samwell.”

“Even if it’s me?” Nursey asks.

“Shut up,” Dex mutters, but there’s no real heat behind it.

Nursey laughs and puts an arm around Dex, because Nursey has a feeling that Dex could use another hug. Dex doesn’t move for a minute or two, then he sinks against Nursey with a sigh. Nursey falls asleep before the end of the movie as he does so often, only this time Dex doesn’t elbow him in the ribs to tell him to go the fuck to bed because Bitty will cry if he sleeps on the green couch.

This time, Nursey falls asleep and doesn’t wake up again until much later.

It’s the middle of the night, and he’s too tired to move, too tired to realize that the warm thing that’s curled against him is Dex, too tired to do anything other than go right back to sleep.

He wakes up again when Dex nudges him. Nursey lets out a low grumble, because he’s not done sleeping yet and screws his eyes shut, refusing to acknowledge where exactly he’s sleeping right now.

It works pretty well for him.

*

In the morning, Nursey is snuggled against Dex’s back, his arm wrapped around him, holding on tightly. He tries not to panic. This isn’t a big deal, he just fell asleep and Dex didn’t kick him out of his bed for some reason. Maybe Dex fell asleep too.

There’s no reason to panic, except he’s actually _plastered_ against Dex, which isn’t a surprise with how small this bed is, and now is not a good time to have an awkward boner, except his awkward boner really doesn’t care.

So maybe there’s _one_ reason to panic.

Nursey can deal with this. He’ll just scoot away as far as he can and wait for Dex to wake up and pretend that there were several inches between them all along. It’s a fool-proof plan. Dex will never know. And maybe Nursey will actually be able to look him in the eye once or twice without dying a horrible death during the next two days.

Slowly, carefully, he lets go of Dex’s shirt and Dex lets out an impatient huff.

“You’re awake, aren’t you?” Nursey says.

“Yeah,” Dex says and looks over his shoulder to smirk at Nursey.

Okay. So. Dex isn’t pissed off. Which is good. But he’s smug. Which is… also not ideal, because Nursey will have to listen to his chirps until they graduate.

“Wanna get up and take a really cold shower?” Dex asks, his eyes crinkling.

Nursey almost gets it then when Dex is looking at him like that. He almost gets why his stomach does a somersault. It’s not because he’s embarrassed. But he pushes all of that away in favor of pushing Dex out of bed.

“Asshole,” Dex mutters as he lands on the mattress Nursey was supposed to sleep on.

“Do you always talk to guys like that the morning after?”

Dex’s cheeks go red. “And do you always push guys out of bed the morning after?”

Nursey grins. “Well played, Poindexter.” He scoots out of bed, looking Dex straight in the eye to make sure Dex’s eyes won’t go elsewhere. “I’m gonna go shower.”

He grabs a handful of clothes and escapes across the hall, thankfully without running into any other Poindexters.

Everything is remarkably normal for the rest of the day. When they come downstairs, Dex’s dad and his brother are both already at work, Dex’s mom is out running errands, and Dex’s uncle is taking his wife and kids to the beach. He asks them if they want to join them, but Dex says he wants to show Nursey around.

Dex takes him to some seafood place for lunch. He knows the owner – “She went to school with my mom” – and they sit by the waterfront and eat fish and chips. This time Dex won’t let him pay. Their next stop is a candy store that Dex’s grandma always took him and his brother to when they were little.

Main Street is short, but Nursey still finds more than enough stores to drag Dex into, threatening to buy a shirt with a lobster on it, which has Dex threatening to leave him here, before they get ice cream and sit down in a nearby park.

“It’s nice here,” Nursey says.

Dex hums and Nursey can’t figure out if that’s a _yes, it is_ or a _whatever you say, Nurse_.

It is nice, though. They’re sitting cross-legged in the shade of a tree and there’s people walking their dogs, and kids playing on a small playground, and squirrels darting across branches. Nursey imagines sitting here with his notebook, writing and writing until his fingers start to hurt.

He almost forgets about this morning.

Almost.

Their knees are touching.

He wonders why Dex doesn’t scoot away. He wonders why he doesn’t scoot away. He wonders why Dex didn’t wake him up and tell him to get the fuck out of his bed last night. And he wonders why he didn’t get the fuck out of Dex’s bed when he noticed that he was still in Dex’s fucking bed. And then, because he still isn’t done, he wonders once again why Dex was so okay with him coming here.

Nursey knows he missed Dex, he knows he was bored in New York, and maybe a little lonely, but Dex asked for time off so he could hang out with him, and he took him to that candy store and he’s still Dex, but Nursey also feels like something about him is different.

He was never good at math, but he knows how to put two and two together, he–

“So,” Dex says, “you wanna go watch a movie tonight?”

“Yeah, sure,” Nursey says. He glances at Dex and tries to see something he couldn’t see a few weeks ago at Samwell.

There are so many freckles on his cheeks.

For dinner, they go to a diner that looks like it hasn’t changed one bit since the eighties and Nursey can’t stop looking at Dex. He’s sitting across from Nursey, dipping his fries into some special sauce the diner advertises on a sign that probably hasn’t changed since the eighties either. Dex’s hair is a bit longer than it was when he left Samwell, like he hasn’t had time to get a haircut in a while. It looks soft and Nursey can’t believe that he’s never noticed before and he wants to run his fingers through it just to check.

Nursey shoves his hands into his pockets as they leave.

He talks Dex into watching _Wonder Woman_ with him, even though he’s already seen it with his sister back in New York, and since the movie has been out for a couple of weeks already, it’s just them and two groups of girls. Dex grumbles quietly but thankfully shuts the fuck up when the lights go off.

Towards the end of the movie, Nursey shifts in his seat and his knee bumps against Dex’s. He leaves it there for a moment and he honestly can’t tell if he does it because he wants to know if Dex will pull his leg away or if he wants to see how it feels.

Neither of them moves.

Dex hands him what’s left of their popcorn and their knees are still pressed together.

The movie ends and their knees are still pressed together.

The lights come back on and only then does Dex move.

Dex is quiet on the way home, but it’s not the hostile kind of quiet that always descends on their room after a fight. It’s the kind of quiet that isn’t horrible and draining. It’s a bit like it was on the day he arrived here. Nursey looks at the streetlights as Dex takes them home. He sees lightning flicker in the distance, but it’s a storm that’ll most likely pass them by.

Nursey sleeps on the mattress that night, but Dex grins at him before he flicks off the lights. There’s something soft in his smile that Nursey only rarely catches a glimpse of at Samwell.

“Good night,” Dex whispers and it sounds like he’s telling Nursey a secret.

“Night, Dex,” Nursey whispers back.

*

On the morning of the Fourth, Dex’s mom hands each of them a cup of coffee and a plate with eggs and bacon on it and ushers them out of the kitchen. There’s food on every surface, potato salad, and pies, and cupcakes, decorated with red-white-and-blue sprinkles and Dex’s mom and aunt seem to be working on some sort of casserole right now.

They eat on the porch with Dex’s cousins, who keep asking Dex questions about college and hockey and Audrey won’t stop talking about Jack Zimmermann.

“Will asked him to sign a shirt for me,” Audrey tells Nursey.

“Audrey wants to play college hockey, too,” Dex says.

Audrey nods. “And then I’ll play for the Boston Pride,” she says. “And the national team.”

Nursey doesn’t miss that little Jamie rolls his eyes at her.

“Cool,” Nursey says to Audrey. “I’ll get your jersey and you’ll have to sign it, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Audrey says and invites him to come to one of her games and afterwards sweet-talks him into sharing his last piece of bacon with her.

Nursey likes this kid.

Audrey and Jamie are dragged away by Izzie then and Nursey grins. “Look at her. Have you ever seen her play?”

Dex nods. “She’s pretty good.” He looks over his shoulder and adds, “I just hope her dad doesn’t talk her out of it.”

“Why would he?”

“Equipment is expensive,” Dex says. “And he thinks hockey isn’t the right kind of thing for a girl.”

Nursey only sighs.

He’s starting to understand the face Dex makes when he talks about his family. It’s not like they’re completely horrible people. But they’re like this. Nursey wouldn’t say his family is flawless, but at least they support him in whatever he wants to do. And he was never afraid of telling them things. It makes him sad that Dex probably doesn’t know what that feels like.

In the afternoon, another uncle arrives with his wife and two of his three kids.

“How many of your uncles are coming by today?” Nursey says after he’s been introduced. “Fifty?”

“Nah, only forty,” Dex deadpans.

Nursey snorts. “Is that the uncle whose store you work at?”

“Nope, that uncle is spending today with his wife’s family.”

“Oh, right.”

“My mom’s brother is coming by later.”

“Does she only have that one brother?” Nursey asks.

“Yeah, and a sister, but she’s not coming. She’s, uh… She doesn’t get along with most of my uncles.” Dex says. A smile tugs at his lips. “I think you’d like her.”

Nursey grins. “Oh no, is she one of those scary ladies who want equal pay?”

“Shh,” Dex says and ducks behind a pillar on the porch.

His dad and his uncle aren’t listening to them anyway, they’re too busy inspecting the grill, but Nursey still keeps his mouth shut. He doesn’t want to start a… discussion with anyone today.

He’s already made it through nearly four days without getting into a fight with Dex. Well. Nursey shoved Dex out of bed and they had a bit of a disagreement about sandwich toppings the other day, but at least they didn’t start throwing stuff at each other at any point. Dex also didn’t tape his shoes to the ceiling. It’s a big improvement.

They eat burgers and little Izzie talks him into eating a cupcake with blue frosting and extra sprinkles that she made. While Dex is taking care of the grill, showing one of his other cousins – Hannah? – how to flip burgers, Dex’s grandma first compliments Nursey on his hair and then tells him how proud she is of Dex.

“He’s such a sweet boy,” Nana Poindexter says.

As if he’s heard, Dex looks over at them, a small smile on his face.

Nursey smiles back at him.

“Sweet boys, both of you.”

When Dex comes back and Nana Poindexter still won’t stop talking about what a good kid he is and how glad she is that he’s doing well at college, Dex’s face gets impossibly red.

Honestly, Nursey is having the time of his life.

As it starts to get dark, everyone starts getting up, and the kids start darting off.

“Um…” Nursey says.

“They’re going to the park,” Dex says. “We can go, but… I usually don’t. We can see the fireworks from here.” He shrugs. “But we can go if you–”

“Nah… let’s stay.”

With all the bustle and the noise, Nursey wouldn’t mind a few quiet minutes. Or even a quiet hour. He has no idea for how long Dex’s relatives will be gone, but he wouldn’t mind having Dex to himself for a little while either. He’s leaving tomorrow afternoon and it somehow feels like it’s way too soon.

Last week he wasn’t even sure if they’d make it through a couple of days without getting into some sort of major argument, but now he feels like he could stay for another two weeks. They’ll be back at Samwell soon enough, but Nursey is pretty sure that it won’t be like this. They’ll be getting on each other’s nerves again with the added pressure of their classes and homework and hockey.

No one is surprised that they’re staying at the house; apparently Dex hasn’t gone to the park with them in years.

Dex gives him a nudge. “Come on, grab some food…”

“I thought we’re staying?”

“We are,” Dex says, “but we’re not staying down here.”

“We aren’t?”

They grab a two cans of beer from a cooler that’s on the porch, waiting for Dex’s family to return, Nursey takes an almost empty pie dish and two forks, and Dex picks up a bag of chips and beckons Nursey to follow him. They go up the stairs and down the hall, into a room that’s apparently both an office and a guest room.

Dex hands Nursey the chips and opens the window, clambering through it like he’s done it a million times before, out onto the roof of the garage. “You coming?”

“Sure,” Nursey says.

Dex grins. “Don’t worry, I helped my dad fix the roof last summer.”

Nursey wasn’t worried about the roof. He just sort of had a flashback of Dex climbing out onto the reading room, grinning at him through the window like he is now. He makes it outside without falling off the roof, even though it’s a little steeper than the one at the Haus. Dex holds on to his shirt until he’s sat down.

“Do you come up here every year?” Nursey asks.

“Yeah.”

“On your own?”

“Not this year,” Dex says. He takes the pie and the forks, handing one of them to Nursey.

They drink their beer and Dex opens the bag of chips that they keep handing back and forth, but they don’t talk much until the fireworks start.

They’re not exactly close, but they can see them well enough from up here. Nursey has always been one for fireworks, and he keeps his eyes on them for a minute or two, but he eventually finds himself glancing over at Dex. He has a small smile on his face as he stares into the distance.

The longer Nursey looks at him, the clearer it all becomes to him.

Really, he sees it now. He sees all those minutes, those hours he spent wondering what Dex was up to, staring at his phone, thinking about texting him, unsure what to say.

He sees the freckles on Dex’s skin and understands why he wants to reach out.

He remembers being drunk and watching Dex and Bitty talk in the kitchen, remembers thinking about pulling Dex with him into a dark corner and kissing him. He remembers telling himself the next morning that he was just drunk, that Dex is just about the last person he’d want to kiss. He remembers sitting in the reading room the night before they both went back home, just like they’re sitting up here today. He remembers wanting to pull Dex closer when he said he’d rather stay at Samwell.

Yes, Nursey sees it now.

He has no idea how he could have been so blind. He didn’t _just_ miss Dex.

Dex notices that he’s looking at him after a moment. He doesn’t say anything, he just looks back at Nursey.

Nursey has no idea what to do. He needs to be chill. _Chill_. He can’t just do something monumentally stupid now because that’d ruin everything. They’re getting along and it took them ages to get to this point. Nursey would much prefer for things to stay like this.

Dex is still looking at him. Nursey is still looking at Dex.

There are only a few inches between his hand and Dex’s. And maybe he’s reading the way Dex is looking at him right now completely wrong. Maybe Dex only let him come here because they’re friends, and friends hang out together in the summer.

Or maybe it’s more than that.

Nursey looks away, back at the fireworks. “I kinda missed you,” he says. It’s as close to the truth as he can get right now.

“Yeah,” Dex says after a few seconds. “I kinda missed you, too.”

“Who would have thought…” Nursey trails off, because apparently he isn’t the only one who’s noticed that there were only a few inches between their hands.

There’s no space between their hands at all any longer.

Dex lets out a quiet puff of breath.

Nursey squeezes his hand. He wants to say something like, _it’s okay_ , but he’s completely forgotten how.

Dex holds his hand until the fireworks are over, until a car comes down the street and pulls into the Poindexters’ driveway, followed by two more.

“Sorry,” Dex whispers.

Dex has no idea what he’s apologizing for. For pulling his hand away? For holding Nursey’s hand in the first place?

Nursey doesn’t ask, because this moment still feels too fragile.

He doesn’t ask, but they both wave at the kids as they clamber out of their dad’s car and run back around the house. They are ushered up the stairs not too long after and Nursey and Dex have to vacate the roof so the kids can go to bed on the pull-out couch in the office that’s also a guest room.

Nursey and Dex sit downstairs with Dex’s relatives for a little while, the older kids that haven’t been tucked into bed yet roasting marshmallows.

Later, they go to bed without talking about what happened on the roof and maybe that’s for the best.

*

On Wednesday morning, Dex is very… _Dex_.

He’s making the _I’m grumpy and I’ll glare at everyone and everything_ face that Nursey is used to from Samwell. Nursey almost wants to ask, but then Dex’s uncle and his family are leaving after breakfast and Nursey barely gets a chance to talk to Dex because there’s people everywhere.

Izzie gives each of them a friendship bracelet before she says goodbye to them.

Dex’s mom makes them sandwiches for lunch, Nursey thanks her for having him for a good ten minutes, then he throws all of his stuff into his bag, Dex sitting on his bed, watching him, now glaring a little less but frowning a little more. Nursey knows he should say something, because if he goes back to New York now, they’ll never talk about that weird moment on the roof last night.

He almost asks the question that’s been sitting on the tip of his tongue. _What the hell was that?_

Not for the first time, Nursey tells himself to chill the fuck out.

Dex drives him to the airport and Nursey tries to somehow fill the silence and he manages to tickle a few smiles out of Dex, but once the first signs for the airport start appearing at the side of the road, he feels like there’s some sort of countdown starting in his head.

He could still say something.

He has a feeling that Dex won’t, even though he was the one who took Nursey’s hand last night. In fact, he has a feeling that Dex has been very quietly freaking out, much like Nursey has been very quietly freaking out ever since Dex let go of his hand.

He wants to reach out to him now, take his hand again, but he probably shouldn’t do that when Dex is driving and his face is as red as it is right now.

“We’re gonna get there way too early,” Dex mutters.

“You were the one who wanted to leave because you thought traffic would be hell,” Nursey says. He secretly thought Dex might want to get rid of him earlier than planned. Whatever. It’s chill.

“Well,” Dex says and takes a right, “I guess I was wrong, wasn’t I?”

“No one has ever sounded this passive-aggressive when admitting they were wrong.”

“I’m not…” Dex hits the brakes and takes another right. “I’m not passive-aggressive.”

“Right, you’re just aggressive.”

Dex huffs. He’d probably like to stop in the middle of the street and tell Nursey to get out of his car right about now. Instead, he takes another turn, into a short-term parking garage.

“Wait, I thought you were gonna drop me off?”

“I am dropping you off,” Dex says. “This is the airport. That’s where you need to go, right?”

“Yo, Dex,” Nursey says, because Dex sounds like he needs to take one or several deep breaths. “Chill.”

Dex pulls into an empty parking spot and turns off the ignition with a little too much force. Dex tried to fine him for _chill_ s when they moved into the Haus, but the bylaws didn’t say anything about _chill_ being a fineable offense.

“So you’re walking me in, huh?” Nursey asks. He thought Dex would just drop him off at departures. That would have been fine.

“I guess I am,” Dex says, just on the verge of snappy. “Or I can leave if you don’t want me to.”

“No, it’s ch–”

Dex shoots him a glare.

“ _Chill_ ,” Nursey says pointedly as Dex gets out of the car, slamming the door shut.

Nursey follows him, watching in fascination as Dex takes his bag out of the trunk, the look on his face somewhere between exasperated and maybe a little embarrassed. Nursey isn’t entirely sure what’s going on in Dex’s head right now, but Dex’s face is red as a lobster in any case.

Nursey is well aware that Dex doesn’t talk about his feelings. He just feels them until his head explodes, but Nursey isn’t like that. He doesn’t let his feelings out either, not really, but that’s why he always carries a notebook around with him.

Dex hands him his bag and slams the trunk shut as well.

Nursey catches Dex’s wrist. “Hey, Dex…”

“What?”

Nursey is taking a gigantic leap of faith here, but it’s all starting to piece itself together. Why Dex let him come here. Why he made him pancakes. Why he didn’t push him out of his bed. Why he held his hand last night.

They’re miles and miles away from Dex’s house and his relatives, they’re in an airport parking garage and there’s no one else around. Nursey tugs at Dex’s wrist and Dex takes a tentative step forward.

“Tell me if I’m getting this totally wrong,” Nursey says and reaches up to trail his thumb over Dex’s cheek. “Because if so, I’ll probably have to find a different place to stay next semester.”

Dex doesn’t say a word, his eyes wide.

“Poindexter, come on,” Nursey says and tugs Dex a little closer. “Is this okay?”

Dex nods and Nursey lets go of his bag so he can wrap his arms around Dex and kiss him. At the airport. In a parking garage. Approximately one second before he has to go back to New York. Or at least it feels like a second. He kisses Dex and Dex kisses him back, his hands tangled in Nursey’s shirt, sighing softly when Nursey pulls away.

Nursey kisses steals another quick kiss just because he wants to make sure this is real. He also wants to ask Dex for how long he’s wanted to do this, but he’s probably not ready for the answer.

“So,” Nursey says.

“So,” Dex echoes. His hands are still on Nursey’s sides.

And Nursey just has to kiss him again. They’re almost an hour early. He can spend an hour kissing Dex in this parking garage, no problem.

A car door slams shut somewhere and Dex jumps.

“You okay?” Nursey asks.

“Yeah,” Dex says. “Just… I don’t know. Nursey…”

“Hm?”

“This isn’t gonna make things weird at Samwell, is it?”

“I guess we’ll find out,” Nursey says and smirks. “We wouldn’t be the first couple on the team.”

Dex’s eyebrows shoot up.

Shit, Nursey just said _couple_ , didn’t he? They’re really not even close to that conversation yet. “I mean… whatever, it’s chill.”

Dex gives him a half-hearted shove. “Why do you keep saying that?”

“Because it makes your cheeks go all red and that’s kinda cute,” Nursey says.

Dex gives him another shove, his cheeks going even redder than they already were before.

“Like that,” Nursey says and pokes Dex’s cheek.

“Fuck off…”

“Hey, Poindexter,” Nursey mumbles and pulls at Dex’s shirt. “Don’t look so grumpy, kiss me again…”

Dex sighs, but he does kiss him again and when they pull apart, Dex is smiling.

That’s better. Much better.

Nursey checks what time it is and he sort of regrets that they weren’t two or three hours early. “So, are you still walking me inside?”

“Sure,” Dex says and takes him by the hand, pulling him towards the elevator.

Dex hugs him before he goes through security and maybe Nursey holds on for a little bit too long, but he tells himself this wasn’t the last time he got to kiss Dex and going by the way Dex is smiling at him, it really wasn’t.

“Yo,” Nursey says and takes off his green snapback to put it on Dex’s head. “See you in a couple of weeks, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Dex says, touching Nursey’s snapback.

There’s a good chance that all of this will go up in smoke once they’re back at Samwell. But there’s also a good chance that Dex will let him crawl into bed with him and kiss him and that senior year will be the best year yet.

Until then Nursey is just gonna remember the way Dex smiled at him after he kissed him and tell himself that it’ll be fine.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos and comments are very much appreciated :)
> 
> I'm @zimmermaenner on tumblr if anyone wants to come by!


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